Demographers have a standard way of measuring teen births: as a rate per 1,000 teens aged 15-19. This helps to make apples to apples comparisons across years and regions, but it doesn't answer the question of how likely a teen is to become a parent before the age of 20.
Nearly 1 out of 5 teen births in Texas are a repeat birth, so one way to estimate the overall likelihood of teen parenthood is to look back across time and see what percent of teens gave birth to their first child each year.
For the cohort of Texans who were born in the year 2000, we can estimate that approximately 11% gave birth before the age of 20. Most of those were 18 or 19 when they had their first birth, but about 4% of Texas females born in 2000 became parents at 17 or younger.
This is just an estimate, and it doesn’t perfectly account for things like people moving in and out of Texas — but it gives us a good ballpark idea. It’s also important to note that teen birth rates have been on a big decline, so the cohort born in 2007 who are just now entering their teenage years may have a lower overall likelihood of becoming teen parents.
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